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Sunday, 16 September 2012

Another week(ish) of learning...

One of the things I've learnt this week is that this term is going to be VERY busy!! It's been my first week of doing the extra hours at school and also doing the 3-hour evening class where I get all the teaching input of the course I'm doing. I've learnt that I just won't have much time to keep up with blogs, and while I'm doing Learn Something New Every Day, I actually prefer to prioritise that and have a little bit of crafty and creative 'me' time each evening to help me to wind down. I'm OK with this, and accepting that I just need to find a new rhythm that works - maybe catching up at weekends, for example? So here I am! :)

8th September: I learnt how to have some washi fun! I followed a tutorial on Carla Sonheim's blog after seeing Rinda refer to it. The idea was to make an animal but my washi clearly wanted to be a flower!

9th September: I learnt that I shall miss them both so - the Olympics and Paralympics, that is. Gosh, I've SO enjoyed watching them this summer! In fact, it's been a fabulous summer of sport altogether this year!

I stamped the Olympic rings with a milk bottle lid and painted the Agitos freehand; I was going to paint the lions too but liked them as pencil outlines so left them that way :)

10th September: I learnt that When you're 6, a wobbly tooth is The. Most. Exciting. Thing. EVER!! It was my first day working with Year 2 in my new teaching assistant role, and as the children arrived they all wanted to tell me about - and show me - their wobbly teeth...

My fairy stamp came to mind as soon as I chose the day's lesson! I paper-pieced it by stamping parts of it onto patterned paper scraps.

11th September: I learnt that after a tricky day when I was feeling a bit tired and headachey and slightly down, a bit of blue sky can cheer me immensely - and it was fun to photograph that blue sky with Instagram, now that I know I can get it on my phone!

I haven't used many photos in this year's project but this 'lesson' definitely needed the photo :)

12th September: I learnt that - oh dear, my shoes leak! Which made me think of some song lyrics, which led to the right hand page. It makes sense to me...

That's the outline of my actual foot (once it had dried out, of course!) Note how it doesn't actually fit ont he page?!

13th September: The left hand page was a photo in a magazine that I loved when I saw it and knew I'd use for something one day. It was perfect to illustrate that at this time of year I don't know what to wear!

I added quick bands of seasonal colour and doodles on the right hand page.

14th September: Not such a fun lesson; I learnt that my patience has limits, and having recently been congratulating myself on being calmer and more patient - particularly with The Tomboy - I was disappointed to discover that I can still get short-tempered and snappy with her. Yes, I was tired, and yes, she was playing up and being really quite rude that day, but I knew why she was behaving like that and I was disappointed that being tired made it so much harder to stay calm.

I painted the pages to leave small spaces for the title and journaling. I wanted to get across the feeling of reaching my limits, of being penned in and needing to burst out...

15th September*: Well, you can see what I learnt :) I had such a lovely afternoon out with The Fabulous One! We had a lot of catching up to do, we had some scrummy food and refreshing tea, and it was just great to spend time with my dear friend :)

The images at the bottom are added using stamps from a bag full that lovely Clair gave me - that coincidentally included some tea and cake themed stamps! Perfect!

*Bonus day! I was going to share a week's worth of pages but with September having 30 days it seems to make sense to share a couple of batches of 7 and a couple of 8 rather than have a couple of leftover days at the end....

20 comments:

all your pages are lovely lessons. I love the freehand drawing and the foot lol! I agree loved the olympics and paralympics...and the tooth fairy has been here three times over the summer and will be returning again soon x

I love these pages and the work you have put into them mel. Very impressed with the drawings of the lions too! I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the TA course. It it is any conciliation, my mum has been a teacher for over twenty years and still is on her knees after the first few weeks back in the classroom! xxx

A thoughtful selection of pages with plenty to enjoy and educate us all I think. It's interesting how a project like this emphasizes common concerns and thoughts and experiences - we're all trying to work out lots of the same things and that's a reassuring thought

Things will fall into a routine soon and the time crunch will be less overwhelming. You've already learned one of the joys of being with that age...wobbly teeth :) I love the photo from the magazine and your penned in page is perfect.

It's all looking great Mel. My favourite is the fairy page though! Did I ever tell you of the time my son's friend lost his front tooth in a large ball pond during J's birthday party at a local play area. He asked me if I could help him find it! Needless to say I didn't, but told him that I would write a note for the tooth fairy to explain why it wasn't under his pillow.

...is what I speak. It describes what I actually say (nonsense, mostly) and how I say it (ie my accent, which is a mixture of all sorts - a bit of North of England, a bit of Irish, a bit of South West England, a lot of just me!) The word comes from my name, Mel, and the fact that I'm one-quarter Welsh. But there's not actually any Welsh in my accent. Go figure...